Apple reportedly is planning to add Baidu as one of the search engine options on the mobile version of its browser, Safari, according to Chinese reports.

Citing sources close to the matter, a tech.sina.com.cn report Monday said Cupertino's partnership with the Chinese search engine giant was part of its expansion plans in China. The search engine options currently available on mobile Safari are Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing.

According to Sina, Baidu shared its cloud and mobile Internet strategy during its developer conference last week. At the conference, Li Mingyuan, general manager for cloud and mobile at Baidu, said Apple and the Chinese company had reached a partnership agreement for China.

The U.S. company will also include more features for the Chinese market in its upcoming Mac OS X Mountain lion desktop operating system, said the report. It will add Sina Weibo as well as Baidu on the list of search engine options on the desktop version of Safari.

China is the world's biggest Internet market with users reaching 500 million in end-November 2011. The Asian economic giant is also Apple's second largest market after the United States and will likely overtake the U.S. in 2014 as Cupertino's largest market.